News

If you don't have it yet, my collection of Holiday Tunes is up as a free download this month :-) Also a few new blog entries to check out. Still tooling around Germany for a couple more weeks and be home just in time for Christmas. Happy holidays to one and all! xoxo

Great tour in the PNW and thanks to all who came out! It was great to connect with so many friends and then actually make a few more? Yeah, I'm kind of introverted once I get off stage. I've thought about maybe bringing a microphone to parties just because I seem to be so much more comfortable when I have one in front of me. Maybe I can get one of those Katy Perry headset mics and that'll just be my "thing." Ha ha. I have just a little bit of time back in Iowa before I head out for a pretty busy fall - I'm touring on the east coast for a month and then flying to Germany right after that. All good, I love performing and traveling, have been writing some new stuff and also breaking in some new guitar effects. Feeling pretty happy and inspired and grateful about being on stage, and looking forward to more chances to go deeper and deeper into the experience of making and sharing music.

Working hard on booking a few tours this fall! It looks like I'll be in the Pacific Northwest for a couple of weeks in late September - I'm looking for a few house concerts and would love to hear from you if you're interested in hosting. October and November I'll be traveling east through New England and South through Virginia and Tennessee before heading back to Germany around Thanksgiving. I've been working a bunch of new songs into shows lately and will be hard at work on another batch in the next month or so.

In other news, I started wearing shorts again this summer for the first time in about 5 years. I had gotten stuck in that cycle of 'don't wear shorts-legs get whiter-can't wear shorts because legs are too white' and I couldn't break out, but this year I just made it happen. I apologize to everyone for the blinding glare but it has gotten better. And frankly as someone who suffers from depression, anxiety and a host of other syndromes and clusters I could use ALL THE VITAMIN D I CAN GET, ha ha.

If you haven't caught a StageIt show yet, I have one coming up a little later this month. They're a blast, really fun and intimate and there's really great little group that's been showing up. You can make requests, chat and leave tips and honestly it's a really cool, informal way to hear music and be connected. We'd love to have you join us and you can sign up here.

Having a blast touring around Germany and promoting the new Live in Germany CD! Micha, Amy and I have been stretching things out on stage a little bit and finding some really cool ways to expand the songs and make some really interesting textures. AKA rock out a little bit. Somehow in my quest for perfection on stage I had forgotten that it's so important to be able to let yourself take risks and make mistakes. Otherwise there's no room for magic. We've been working some new songs into the sets and I really like the direction of them - a mix of wholesome, rock-y, fun and profound. Off to Dresden this weekend for the first time and really looking forward to playing in Hamburg with Abi Wallenstein later this month!

Just launched a smallish kickstarter for the Live in Germany CD! We're just finishing up mixing and doing the campaign to cover graphics, mastering and duplication. The CD is being released in Germany and is available in the US exclusively through kickstarter, meaning I'll smuggle as many copies as I can back in my suitcase after our spring tour :-) It's a great CD and we've got some cool Berlin-themed rewards, so please check it out and hope you'll join us! Danke Schön :-)

Excited to be back in Iowa and finally sitting still long enough to catch my breath. It's been an incredibly busy year, but it's equally great to get back to one of my favorite things - spending time with my guitar and feeling around in the ether for songs waiting to be born.

I'm also pretty jazzed to have some time to start recording a new version of 'We Belong' - the original was recorded back in 2003, and has since become one of my most-downloaded tracks on iTunes. Producing and engineering is probably my 2nd favorite thing next to writing - it's a lot like painting, and it's such a joy to give this song another incarnation. (It'll be released as a single later this year.)

Project #3 is a Live CD recorded in Germany last year with Micha Maass and Amy Zapf - we're in the mixing process right now and will be a doing a smallish kickstarter to finish up graphics, mastering and duplication. Right now it's only available in the US through the kickstarter campaign, so make sure to sign up if you want your copy :-)

Happy to be back in my old hometown of Tucson for a couple of shows this week! Tucson is where I got my start, figured out who I was, transitioned and really found my voice literally and figuratively. There's such an incredibly supportive and diverse community of artist and musicians, and I had no idea when I moved here (pre-transition) back in the 1990s that it would be such a great place to be trans. It's such a joy to come back and reconnect with so many people who have supported me at every stage of my personal and musical journey. It's also 60 degrees warmer than where I flew out of and nobody's complaining about that either :-)

I really love the Christmas season, something about the longing for light in a time of darkness really resonates with me. A few years back I was recording a song every year for Christmas and giving it away, and then it became a collection of songs, and then a CD (or a download at least.) It's up on my website for free this month and you're welcome to download, enjoy and share it as much as you want. I so appreciate you making it possible to do what I do, and this is just one small way of saying THANK YOU for your love and support throughout the year :-) Happy holidays, wishing you love, light, warmth and comfort this season and all year long.